Flag At Half-Mast

Today I picked up Maddy and as we usually do, we talked a little bit about our day. Just the usual chit chat: "What did you learn today?" "Did you do any fun things?" "What did you play at recess time?"

Normally, I get the "I dunno" or the "I'm too tired to talk" answers. Today, however, Maddy was unusually talkative. She told me about morning prayers and actually recited both the Our Father and the Hail Mary perfectly. She told me that they gone to P.E. and they played freeze tag....again (with a hint of the wonderful attitude I'm expecting to mature in about 7 years. Pray for us now).

And then she surprised me. She told me that they had been learning about the flag (which makes sense seeing as they're learning the Star Spangled Banner). She told me that when the flag is "in the middle", that someone important had died. She told me that they saw the flag "in the middle" today and she went on to wonder aloud who could have possibly died that was important enough to fly the flag like this today. She wondered whether a priest had died...or maybe the Pope! Yes, it must be the Pope as he's old, she surmised. She was quite perplexed when each time she asked me I responded with "No, I don't think he/she has died."

Thankfully, after a little while, she concluded, on her own, that obviously someone important died today, but not someone she knew and that it was ok for her not to know. I just didn't have the heart to tell her about the significance of today.

How do you explain the horror we all witnessed seven years ago? How do you explain that not all people are kind? How do you explain the inexplicable hate someone had to have had to fly two airliners into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and another crashing in a field in Pennsylvania? How?

I couldn't.

My prayers to all those who lost a loved one, friend, collegue, co-worker.